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Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936

"Rewards and Fairies"


The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass
As lovely or unlucky or as lonely as I was!'
The Queen was in her chamber, a-weeping very sore,
There came Lord Leicester's spirit and it scratched upon the door,
Singing, 'Backwards and forwards and sideways may you pass,
But I will walk beside you till you face the looking-glass.
The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass
As hard and unforgiving or as wicked as you was!'
The Queen was in her chamber; her sins were on her head;
She looked the spirits up and down and statelily she said:
'Backwards and forwards and sideways though I've been,
Yet I am Harry's daughter and I am England's Queen!'
And she faced the looking-glass (and whatever else there was),
And she saw her day was over and she saw her beauty pass
In the cruel looking-glass that can always hurt a lass
More hard than any ghost there is or any man there was!


THE WRONG THING

A Truthful Song

THE BRICKLAYER:
I tell this tale, which is strictly true,
just by way of convincing you
How very little since things were made
Things have altered in the building trade.
A year ago, come the middle o' March,
We was building flats near the Marble Arch,
When a thin young man with coal-black hair
Came up to watch us working there.


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